Help Bio-Designed Cassava Save the World: Sheril Kirshenbaum

June 16 (Bloomberg) -- The human population, now
approaching 7 billion, may top 10 billion by 2100. Agronomists
predict food shortages in our future, and it doesn’t take an
advanced degree to understand why: When food production fails to
keep pace with population growth, billions go hungry, including
many Americans. To avert disaster, we must find a way to squeeze
more grains, fruits and vegetables from ever less farmland.

While I am an environmentalist, I am convinced that
transgenic crops should be part of the solution. However, unless
we can improve their development and distribution, we will fail
to realize their potential.

Whether you’re comfortable with the concept of genetically
modified plants -- or GM crops, as they are sometimes called --
they already account for a significant share of worldwide
agriculture. More than 2.5 billion acres have been planted with
genetically modified seeds, by more than 15 million farmers in
29 countries. The economic impact is enormous, with the market
value of biotech crops estimated at $11.2 billion last year.
Most of us consume GM plants every day in familiar foods and
beverages such as Ragu Pasta Sauce and Coca-Cola. Over the
coming decades, the world will increasingly need to rely on
them.

Most transgenic plants are designed to be herbicide- and
pest-resistant. But they can also be engineered to grow without
fertilizer, which saves not only on expensive fertilizers but
also on the gasoline it takes to distribute them. Crops can be
designed to survive on very little water -- a valuable asset
given that climate change is expected to expand the world’s arid
regions.

Golden Rice

Scientists continue to create new varieties with ever more
useful traits that make crops disease resistant and improve
yield. But genetic modification promises even greater benefits
to humanity.

Consider golden rice. Many of the world’s poorest people
depend on rice as a significant source of food, but it doesn’t
provide the complete nutrition that the human body requires.
More than 250,000 children die every year due to vitamin A
deficiency, and more suffer from associated ailments such as
blindness. Golden rice has been engineered to contain beta
carotene, which is a precursor of vitamin A.

Making it available in developing countries would save
thousands of lives, and it would be more cost-effective than
providing vitamin supplements or fortifying foods. Golden rice
is expected to become available by 2013 in the Philippines and
2015 in Bangladesh.

Big Crops

Unfortunately, this example is the exception. Transgenic
agriculture has mostly been limited to big crops that grow year
round, such as corn and soybeans. These GM plants are made
available exclusively by the multinational companies that have
the money and legal clout to gain approval for their products.
Such companies focus on market value and consumer acceptance,
rather than on such humanitarian goals as supplying vitamin-rich
foods to the poor.

The success of golden rice has been largely due to a
collaborative push by public and private organizations.
Initially, it was developed by researchers at the Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology and the University of Freiburg in
Germany. Then, the Swiss agribusiness giant Syngenta AG ensured
that small farmers in developing countries would be able to buy
the seeds at an affordable price. Today the International Rice
Research Institute, in the Philippines, oversees the project,
and a grant from the Gates Foundation finances food safety tests
and covers the high costs of getting regulatory approval.

Can this model be replicated? Over the past few years, the
U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute has taken up
the challenge to sequence additional starches that could make a
significant difference in developing nations where corn and
soybean are less important than such staples as foxtail millet,
sorghum and cassava. Such crops, if engineered to be more
nutritious, as well as cheaper to grow in large quantities,
could combat hunger in the poorest parts of Africa and Asia.

Golden rice proves the work can be successful, but also
teaches us that it will take a large and coordinated effort to
design these important foods for those who need them most.

(Sheril Kirshenbaum is a Bloomberg View columnist. The
opinions expressed are her own.)